Five Days
by Abject Tears
Summary: ;and she opens a certain book belonging to Lucy with a cross on its cover, and she takes the first, tentative, fumbling, stubborn steps towards salvation.


i.

The first day, she doesn't even try to pretend that everything is all right, because it isn't.

This is not the first time that everything she cares for has been wrenched from her undeserving hands, though perhaps this time it is more complete. Oh, so much more complete. And she curses the unforgiving finality of life and death, in this world and in the other, the irreversibility of a heartbeat's fading.

She curses God, Aslan, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, or whatever other deity who could possible have been responsible, too.

But deep in her heart she knows exactly which one it was and that she does ignore, for she cannot bring herself to curse him, not _him_, though she feels so justified in doing so.

The first day, she cries.

ii.

The second day, she goes to the morgue and stoically identifies the bodies of seven people, seven people who are _gone _and have left her behind forever.

Forever. For she has no doubt that whatever is waiting for her in the afterlife, it isn't Aslan's Country.

How could it be? She's rejected it, after all.

And so she looks as dispassionately as she can possible manage at the mangled bodies of what was once her family, and she sheds no tears.

They look so like they did sometimes back in the days she does not dare to remember and refuses to acknowledge, when they would drag themselves back after some ridiculous escapade, blood painting them in morbid shades of death.

How many long nights and days did she sit in silent vigil by the side of one or all of her injured siblings?

But now they look somehow different too, and a chill envelopes her as she realises that what is missing is _life_, and what has moved in to fill the empty space is _death_, and they look like the kings and queens of old who died noble, sacrificial deaths as their own blood gave them a bizarre and painfully honourable beauty as they lay shrouded forever.

The second day, she does not cry- she cannot.

iii.

The third day, she sits at home in unconscious homage and unfortunately conscious grief.

Now it seems so much more certain, and though the one thing she's always hated is uncertainty, today she resents this certainty with all her bitter heart, for it has stolen the last breaths of her hope.

That night, she dreams.

_She sits in a field of lavenders, a patch of nightshade in her hand, and watches silently those she loves._

_Polly and Digory recline on the grass not far away, and there is such joyous restfulness in their eyes and stances that she chokes on empty envy, as they look across the field and laugh as the younger ones play._

_Jill and Eustace are running, clear laughter following their light footfalls as they fly across the field, playful insults exchanged as they hurtle forward, each intent on beating the other, and both so full of life and purpose and light that a forlorn jealousy leaks into her heart, though the futility of it all does not escape her either._

_And most painfully and beautifully of all, Peter and Edmund stand, faces raised to the sunlight, arms uplifted and pure hope and love shining from their hearts._

_And Lucy._

_Oh, Lucy._

_She dances, the grass and sun and birdsong as her backdrop and accompaniment, and yet her dance seems incomplete. But she is so sweet and real and unmistakably Lucy that tears touch Susan's face, tears of love and loss and mourning for what is gone, and will not come again._

_And then the sunlight manifests into the most magnificent, horrible, gorgeous, terrifying sight she has seen in years, and slowly the great lion appears, frolicking in the field with Lucy, and then the dance is utterly complete._

_He is golden and radiant and beautiful, and longing fills her heart to the brim, for the love that she has turned from and the joy she has rejected and the Lion she has betrayed._

_He turns his head, just slightly, and she is caught in an amber gaze, captivated and fearful._

"_Dear heart."_

_The words draw up yet more tears._

"_Come home, child." _

_More tears, more sorrow, more grief—_

"_Come home…"_

iv.

The fourth day, she wakes up.

It is their funeral, a combined funeral of seven people that she will never forget, a cry of mourning and farewell before everyone moves on and the world goes on, as it always does.

It is a grey afternoon, the sky silver and streaked with ominous clouds, but somehow rain would be so appropriate today.

The pastor preaches about life and death and truth and Heaven and Hell, and she knows where they have gone, for her dream could not possibly be Hell, except maybe for her.

He speaks of loss and grief and healing, and quotes a well-known line that speaks to her so intimately it scares her.

_Earth hath no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal…_

She doesn't listen after that, too busy hearing her own heart and that of someone who is definitely trying to tell her something, but her ears have been closed for so long, it takes effort to open them again.

She tosses seven handfuls of soil on seven graves, though she is not impressed by this ritual. They are dead, and she understands that. She needs have no part in their burial to accept it.

But it does give her a chance to say her final farewell, alone and deep in her soul where she still believes, for she knows it is the part of her that they deserve to remember and keep.

To each of them she says a sorrowful goodbye, and to each she gives her love and her apologies and her forgiveness, and her love again.

And her understanding.

She lays herself bare before Peter, Edmund and Lucy, and to them alone she admits her doubt and fear and bitterness and frightening, heavy grief, and if she is a lunatic for talking to a dead body that is underground, she doesn't care.

They know, and that's enough for her.

That night, she goes home, curls up in the armchair Edmund and Peter were always fighting over, and opens a certain book belonging to Lucy with a cross on the front of it, and she takes her first, tentative, fumbling, stubborn step to salvation.

_The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit._

_**Psalm 34:18**_

v.

The fifth day, she begins to heal.

In her heart she can hear the echoes of grief, but they are but echoes and slowly, her eyes are opening to a new dawn.

There is something vaguely but definitively beautiful about joy after grief, and it is like the warm sunshine that kisses cold hands after rain, like the wonderful faith that kisses weary hearts after sorrow.

It blesses her that day, and many more after them, and for the first time she begins to believe that happiness is not denied by anyone, it is simply waiting for you to chase it, and if you do, it will welcome you with open arms.

And so, on the fifth day, she smiles.


End file.
